by Jack
The Vultee BT 13 depicted in the painting is one of many historic airplanes at the Chico Air Museum, Chico, CA., not to be confused with Chino, CA. We’re a completely separate facility 300 miles apart. This is a flying restoration.
This is acrylic on canvas, 18 X 20, completed July 19th, 2017 by me. The BT is dimensionally correct, although the wings don’t seem like it, I know because it comes from a photograph and I measured it out on the canvas. The reason is because the wings tilt upward and this alters the perception. The cloud color is more grey than the color shown online.
All comments are welcome. Thanks for looking.
Some history—
If you light off Google Earth and zoom in on Vina, you can easily spot a large asphalt rectangle due east. This was one of three auxiliary air fields for training during WWII.
PT=Primary Trainer
BT=Basic Trainer
AT=Advanced Trainer
These trainers rarely receive the credit they deserve. They gave us the capability to turn out thousands of the best trained pilots in the world.
Vultee BT 13 aka the Vultee Vibrator.
Oddly the vibrator doesn’t really vibrate, least not anymore than any other small plane with a radial engine. I’m told the nickname came from when it approached stall speed. It shook quite a bit then.
True. You wore the uniform, so you also understand that applying ribald nick names to our stuff is just what grunts do.
The B-52, aka the BUFF. Big Ugly Fat F—–.